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Monday, July 9, 2012

(Arizona's Politics noted earlier that neither the Governor nor the Attorney General had announced their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last week, asking the highest court in the land to allow Arizona's law .)

At least one reporter asked Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to comment on today's news that she had appealed to the Supreme Court to lift an injunction stopping a law from going into effect which she had signed in 2009 barring a same-sex partner from receiving coverage under his or her state employee-partner's health insurance. Her acknowledgment of the appeal was not the most coherent, as reported on AZCentral.com, but you can catch the gist:

"Now, it's working its way through court and the Attorney General's Office is asking for the U.S. Supreme Court to see if they will accept the case to determine," she said. "We believe in states rights we believe that things that sets policy like that that it ought to have gone certainly, in the beginning to the Legislature."

The article does note that the 9th Circuit's decision is based on the lack of the constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

The article includes a similarly seemingly-half-hearted defense of the appeal by Doug Nick, a spokesman for the Attorney General. (Horne was scheduled to be at the Special Election Canvass, too, so I am uncertain why he did not speak to the Republic reporters for the article.) After noting that only one percent of petitions for review are granted by the Supreme Court (a roughly accurate statement), he stated:

"Because the state constitution defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, state law echoes that, if you will. It is not allowable for same-sex partners to have benefits under state law because the state Constitution defines a spouse as someone of the opposite gender, or child."The Republic article notes that Brewer spoke at a news conference this morning. However, her schedule did not include a news conference as of this morning - just the appearance at the canvass to make official the special Congressional election results to replace Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Likewise, Horne has not put out any news release on the appeal.

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